Despite more than twenty five years of research on the interactions between humans and the human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1), HIV/AIDS remains one of the most prevalent threats to global health. Current estimates suggest it will become the third leading cause of mortality worldwide over the next twenty years behind cancer and cardiovascular disease. A vaccine that would either prevent infection or elicit natural mechanisms to control the disease has not yet been developed. Existing analytical tools simply are not adequate to define the critical characteristics associated with cells of the immune system that provide effective protective immunity to the virus. Technologies such as flow cytometry and immunosorbant assays (ELISpot, ELISA) can evaluate populations of cells, but have poor sensitivity for rare events. Other important functions, such as cytoxicity and proliferation, can only be measured in bulk presently. Together, these limitations make it difficult, if not impossible, to evaluate the human immune response to HIV with sufficient clarity to determine correlates of protection. As such, there is a pressing need for new strategies for analyzing protective immunity to viruses such as HIV.